Exercise helps reduce appetite

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It's commonly thought that a vigorous exercise is one way to work up a large appetite, but a recent study has found that the opposite may be true.

Researchers at the Brigham Young University, Utah, found that a moderate to tough exercise session in the morning actually lead to a reduction in appetite in many of its subjects.

By analysing the neural response to images of food of 35 women – some who had just done a morning session of exercises and some who had not – the researchers were able to ascertain that there may be a reduction in interest of food when we exercise harder.

The women ranged from those considered to be in a normal weight range and those classified as obese. In the first week of the study, each woman walked briskly for 45 minutes on a treadmill and afterward, their brain activity was measured via an EEG machine while they were shown 240 images of food.

The following week, the same women underwent EEG scans at the same time in the morning on the same day of the week as previously, except this time the women had not exercised.

The women also recorded their daily food consumption and exercise which was analysed together with the EEG results.

It’s worth noting that the women did not eat more food on the days there were exercising in order to "make up" for the spent energy.

Scientists concluded that exercise vastly reduced response to food and that the morning exercise session actually resulted in the women remaining far more physically active throughout the day.